We owe our liberties to Garrow and Darrow

We owe our liberties to Garrow and Darrow

Friday 12 June 2009 19.01 EDT
First published on Friday 12 June 2009 19.01 EDT

Donald McRae is to be congratulated on helping rescue a heroic figure from obscurity (The great defender, G2, 11 June). The US lawyer Clarence Darrow was, though, not only a great lawyer but also a dyed-in-the-wool socialist. His commitment to justice and equality, together with his opposition to religious fundamentalism and racism, was unprecedented at the time and he was vilified by the rightwing for his stance. His exemplary courage and commitment is inspirational still today. The novel Darrow for the Defence, by the US writer Irving Stone, provides a vivid portrait of Darrow.John Green London

Clarence Darrow was a wonderful advocate, and powerful rhetorician, but it is a shame that your piece ignores Britain's domestic tradition of campaigning legal advocacy, pre-dating Darrell's birth by a hundred years. The origins of the right to silence, of the concept of being innocent until proven guilty, of the adversarial trial itself, can all be traced to the work of William Garrow, acting for the defence at the Old Bailey in the 1780s.

Most modern notions of the rights of the defendant are the direct result of Garrow's brilliant rhetoric and unflagging advocacy for the accused. Garrow was the first, and still the most important "Rumpole of the Bailey", and by appealing to an American legal tradition that still tolerates judicial murder, as the origin of good legal practice, in preference to Britain's own domestic tradition, you effectively denigrate an aspect of British history that should be celebrated and brought more fully into modern debate.Professor Tim HitchcockUniversity of Hertfordshire Co-director, www.oldbaileyonline.org